It is never too early to begin organizing yourself and your resources for the next big exam! Mid-Semester Exams occur around the week of October 12th, and Final Exams are scheduled for December 12-16. Now is a good time to ask yourself, “Have I made wise choices about my time management? Have I divided my time and energies to achieve maximum success?” Any “free” unstructured time you may have at the moment will quickly dissipate around “crunch” time.

Suggested next steps:

Figure out what your present situation is in each class.

Estimate what “new” work and “catch-up” work needs to be done between now and the exams. Also, estimate how much time will be needed to review for each exam.

Learn all you can about each exam. What is the format? Will there be more objective (multiple-choice, true-false, matching) questions or subjective (essay, short-answer)? How many units or chapters or modules will it cover?

What is the emphasis on various topics? If all of the lecture information and text readings are to be covered, which topics are most important?

Who is writing the exam (professor, textbook authors, department) and who will be grading the exams?

Rank your courses according to difficulty level and decide on a realistic final grade for each course.

Estimate how many study hours are available to you and divide them among your courses according to your priorities. In general, it is better to overestimate how much time you will need than to underestimate.